A Deerhound loyalist who spends the unmoored time irritating felons. My whole life is a losing insurgency!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Beautiful truths about us and the Chinese...

"Cultures are not equal. Cultures can be ranked in a clear if changing hierarchical order and for most of our history the Chinese have ranked far higher than we do.

By chance we got to the magic of capitalism first and in the nineteenth century were able to dominate and humiliate the Chinese in one of the very few but most shameful episodes in our island story. Now that the Chinese have discovered the virtues of capitalism they will soon return to their former pre-eminence. Go in humility to the exhibition at the Royal Academy, a humility enhanced by a realisation that our grossly inadequate educational system does not equip us with a proper knowledge of Chinese characters, symbols and society. They know all about us and understand us, easily appropriating our past achievements. We know nothing about them and our arrogant ignorance of China is our disgrace today and our downfall tomorrow. "